Sharing Circle: How Do Our Words and Actions Affect Others?

During our morning sharing circle today, students shared their ideas about the many ways that our words and actions affect others. They were so insightful and thoughtful. Here is what they had to say: 

...negative words can cause mental and emotional harm by making people feel bad about themselves

...negative words do no show empathy for others

...negative actions can cause physical harm

...you can't take negative words back and you might regret ever saying them

...negative words make situations worse rather than better and can have a domino affect

...negative words and actions are a bad example to others and can leave scars that will last forever

...sometimes negative words lead to negative actions and can be a form of bullying

...negative words and actions have REAL consequences like you can get in trouble

...compliments are positive words that make people feel good about themselves

...positive words can be encouraging and help people to persevere when they are struggling

...positive, kind words are a way of showing RESPECT for others 

...positive words can be helpful and make situations better 

...when people hear you use positive words or see you do positive actions, it makes them like you

....you should always think before you act and follow the 'Golden Rule'

POSITIVE ACTIONS & WORDS = FRIENDSHIP, LOVE & HAPPINESS! 

Practicing Multiplication & Division Facts at Home - Ways to Support Your Child!

Students have been assigned the homework task of practicing their multiplication and related division facts.  A good recall and understanding of multiplication and division facts is extremely important in all areas of mathematics. The expectation for grade 4 students is to learn multiplication facts up to 10 x 10 and related division facts. The expectation in grade 5 is to learn multiplication facts up to 12 x 12 and related division facts. 

In order to help you support your child at home in mastering their math facts, I thought I would share a few ideas with you. By all means, if you do something at home to support your child in this area, that I have not mentioned here, please post a comment and share your idea!

• Fact Family Cards for multiplication and division. You can easily make these at home. Fact families are simply 3 numbers that are related to make a set of math facts (e.g. 3, 4, 12 are a fact family.  There are 4 related facts: 3 x 4 = 12, 4, x, 3 = 12, 12 ÷3 = 4, 12 ÷4 = 3).  Write up EACH fact family on a set of cards. You can cut out the fact family cards in various 2D shapes and play games with them.... 
• Math Toss - Toss a ball around a room or outside and as you toss, call out a math fact...the goal is for your child to say the correct answer before catching the ball. If your child prefers soccer, you can do 'math kick' instead.   
• Flash Cards - you can purchase multiplicaiton and division flash cards at any dollar store or at Scholar's choice. You can also make your own using recipe cards or cardstock. There are many ways to use flashcards. Check out this website for some tips: https://magoosh.com/math/6-tips-using-math-flashcards-child/
• Oral Practice - You can do this while driving around in your car, making dinner, eating breakfast in the morning, etc. Ask your child the facts in order at first and when then get really good, mix up the order. Start with the facts that they know best in order to build their confidence.  If your child has siblings at home that are old enough, get them to pratice together! Turn it into a game and make it fun! 
• 'Fact of the Day' - If your child is having trouble with only a few facts, do a fact of the day to help them master the ones they are struggling with. 
• Computer Games/Apps - There are many out there that will enable your child to practice their math facts. A simple searh will turn up many choices. 
• Worksheets - Straight up pencil and paper practice is always helpful. See the links on the left side of the blog. You can make worksheets more fun by setting a timer and turning it into a game. 

Word Study - Week #6

 Grade 4 Words:

'ile' words, grammar terms, academic vocabulary

• synonym, antonym, emotion, covered, several, toward, fragile, mobile, movement, depend, destroy, celebrate

Grade 5 Words:

Number related words, academic vocabulary

• bruise, awkward, bicycle, triple, trilogy, trinity, duplicate, quadruple, unicycle, duplex, uniform, quartet, quadrant, octave, rhythm

Word Study - Week #5

 Grade 4 Words:

al/il spelling pattern and academic vaocabulary

• twenty, happened, whine, fossil, remember, utensil, normal, mental, partial, council, eclipse, retain

Grade 5 Words:

suffix 'able' and academic vocabulary

• jewelry, avenue, climb, continue, launch, active, passive, allowable, suitable, distinguishable, preferable, debatable, matter, solidify, petroleum

Recount Writing

We are writing recounts in grade 4/5! We began by talking about what recount writing is and examples of recount writing. We reviewed how we can use our knowledge of properly written paragraphs into recount writing. We also talked about important things that we must include in our recounts and we reviewed the recount writing anchor chart.  The students have begun to write a first person recount using a writing organizer and the the anchor chart for reference/success criteria.  I can't wait to read their recounts!

Paragraph Writing in Grade 4/5

 

 

Grade 4/5 Question Box

Today I introduced a class question box to the students. The purpose of having the box is to give the students an opportunity to ask questions, make comments, that they may not feel comfortable enough to ask in person. They can express their feelings about things, ask for help if they need it, etc. If they want to sign their names then it is up to them! Both Madame D'Aoust and myself will be checking the box on a regular basis. 

Mathletics Practice at Home

Mathletics is a program that each of our students has access to via the Student Portal.  Periodically, students log into Mathletics at school when they have completed their work. This program is an excellent home-practice or homework tool so it has been added to the Monday-Friday homework routine in grade 4/5. Students are also always encouraged to practice basic math facts and numeracy skills on their own at home. There is a website link on the left side of the Blog home screen called 'Dad's Worksheets' which has lots of free practice sheets for students at home.  Your grade 4 child should have a quick and accurate recall of multiplication facts up to 12 X 12.  They should be starting to relate multiplication facts to division facts. Grade 5 students should be able to use their quick and accurate recall of multiplication facts to correctly identify related division facts (e.g. 8 x 8 is 64 so 64 ÷ 8 = 8).  

Current Math Focus

We have started exploring patterns in grade 4/5.  The links attached below provide 'Sum it Up' pages for each lesson in the Math Up unit. THESE LINKS EXPIRE IN 14 DAYS and will NOT be reposted so you may want to print up the pages now. I will not be sending paper copies home.  They are not intended for student instruction but rather to provide the educator (or parent-educator) with key ideas to support learning throughout the unit.   

Grade 4:

We began our unit in grade 4 by exploring repeating patterns and identifying the core in a repeating pattern. Students are learning how to predict terms in patterns by using the core. For example, the pattern ABABABAB has a core of AB.  Using our knowledge of the core we can predict that the 20th term will be a B.  If you wish to explore more about the lessons to come, check out the 'Sum it Up' pages by clicking on the links below.

Gr.4 Exploring Repeating Patterns, Gr. 4 Exploring Growing Patterns, Gr. 4 Exploring Shrinking Patterns, Gr. 4 Applying Pattern Rules, Gr. 4 Identifying Pattern Rules

Grade 5: 

In grade 5 our first lesson was about growing patterns. In this lesson we explored shape patterns and connected them to number patterns. We also learned that one term in a pattern could be a whole design with shapes. There is less focus in grade 5 on repeating patterns and increased focus on describing patterns and expressing them in a table of values.  

Gr. 5 Exploring Shape Patterns

Gr. 5 Using a Table of Values to Describe Patterns

Gr. 5 - Creating and Using Pattern Rules

We continue to explore mental math strategies in our regular number talks in grade 4/5 and apply these strategies to all of our math activities. Last week we were practicing skip-counting forwards and backwards by ANY number using benchmark/friendly numbers. Some examples of benchmark/friendly numbers are 5's, 10's, 100's, 1000's, etc.  Students should see patterns in their counting and be able to identify where the digits will change in a larger number. For example, if coutning forwards by 1000's, the change is taking place in the thousands place value spot......3670, 4670, 5670, 6670......and so on.  

Students continue to be encouraged to continue to practice their basic math facts at home including addition and subtraction facts, multiplication and division facts.  Quick recall of math facts is essential at the grade 4/5 level. 

The 30 Book Challenge Reading Initiative

Last Thursday, a letter went home with all students about the '30  Book Challenge.' Please check your child's agenda to read up about this wonderful and fun activity that was introduced to the students Thursday. The letter is also posted in Hapara in your child's workspace for your reference. This challenge is considered part of your child's homework this year. Today in class, we did a lesson on the various types of book 'genres.' One great aspect of the '30 Book Challenge' is that students are able to read at their own pace.  We have told the students that they can count the book they are currently reading (if it qualifies) but that they cannot count books they have already finished.  In early June, we will do something fun to celebrate meeting our goal of reading 30 books this year!